Disclosed herein are methods to user interfaces for document-processing devices, such as copiers, printers, scanners, and the like, and in particular to such methods that implement context based restrictions, as well as corresponding apparatus and computer-readable medium.
Image forming devices such as printers, copiers and multi-function devices provide users the ability to print from a device such as a desktop or laptop computer, a handheld computer, or other electronic devices to a printer connected to the device. The electronic devices may be stand alone devices, or may be connected in a network, such as in a business computing environment, which may include one or more printers.
In order for a printer to interface with and function with the computer to which it is connected, a printer driver can typically be installed on the computer. A printer driver is software which controls the printer from the computer. The printer driver may include a user interface which may be typically accessed by a user through an operating system or an application program, such as a word processing program, a spreadsheet program, or other types of programs, and viewed on a display. Through the user interface, a user may view the supported printing features of the printing device. Within many enterprise environments, system administrators want to more tightly control their user's access to several functions of the printing device because they can lead to the wasting and mismanagement of resources.
For the reasons stated above, and for other reasons stated below which will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon reading and understanding the present specification, there is a need in the art for context based restrictions on the use of a resource such as a printer. There is also a need to inform a user on any context based restrictions through a print driver interface.